


love; not wrong (brave)

by hayvocado



Series: Prompto/Reader: Idiots in Love [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Post Chapter 13, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, World of Ruin, miscommunications
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:46:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29215131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hayvocado/pseuds/hayvocado
Summary: A year after Noctis has disappeared into the Crystal, the sky is still dark, the gang has been scattered to the wind, and you and Prompto are the only ones left in Lestallum. But even with him here with you physically—however rare it may be—you know that he hasn't been with you emotionally or mentally since the day his best friend claimed his birthright.The world's fallen apart and you have never felt more alone.
Relationships: Prompto Argentum/Reader
Series: Prompto/Reader: Idiots in Love [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2102646
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	love; not wrong (brave)

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is based on love; not wrong (brave) by EDEN. i heard it once and immediately assigned it to my prompto playlist, because i headcanon that his mourning/healing process was withdrawing from everyone, no matter how much they loved him. cry with me >:)

Things haven’t been the same since everything with Noctis and Ardyn and the Crystal, and you knew it. You expected it and you accepted it, truly. Everything was flipped upside down and the world had to keep going, people had to keep living. It made sense that things would change, but _Gods,_ did it hurt.

The gang fell apart. Gladio left immediately after Noctis was absorbed, and you haven’t heard from him since, but that made sense. He needed to deal with his own shit, and you got that. Ignis separated from the pack too, a few weeks later, but at least he called to check in on you, let you know that he was okay. You appreciated that. Iris was off being a badass, and a lot of the friends you all picked up along the way were either gone or... _gone._

The only ones to have remained have been you and Prompto, but even then…

The two of you stayed in Lestallum, holing up with most of the survivors of the Fall who have mainly been working as hunters since the world went dark. The skeleton crew of the Crownsguard and the few remaining Glaives joined your ranks and you’ve all built a pretty decent base of hunters with an adequate routine to keep everyone as alive as possible: go to the Leville, pick up an assignment, leave with at least one partner, check back in five days or we send someone after your ass, come home in one piece, get patched up, lather, rinse, repeat.

The routine tended to go to shit with Prompto, though. He forgets to check in and always comes back looking like he was thrown in a blender set on “chop”. It was always brushed off with some lame-ass excuse of “it’s fine” or “you should see the other guy”. The laughs fell flatter and the wounds got graver every time. He was getting reckless. 

You’d had to beg Cor Leonis to go track Prom down for you once, only a couple of months after you settled in Lestallum. It had been over a week—8 entire fucking days—since Prompto had left and no one at the base, nor any other hunters in the region, had heard from your boyfriend. All but falling to your hands and knees, you begged the Marshal with teary eyes to find him, or at least bring home his tags for you to keep under your pillow or some broken widow bullshit.

Fortunately for you, your boyfriend was found in okay-enough shape three days later, having gotten lost in a cave system with no service a few hours away, he said. 

You didn’t have it in you to criticize him when he’d come home with ghosts swimming behind his eyes. So you just spent an hour sitting underneath the long-cold stream of the shower that night, sobbing silently into your knees.

He hadn’t checked on you.

Prompto had been so closed off ever since Noctis left. He never talked to you and you barely saw him anymore unless it was the silhouette of him under the covers when he happened to be home and sleeping off the damage of another hunt-gone-wrong. That, or the back of his head as he left for a hunt early in the morning with little more than a “bye”.

(You always mumble “I love you”, as you slip under the covers behind him, careful not to jostle his injuries.) 

(You always whisper “be careful” as the door clicks shut behind him.)

(He probably never even hears you.)

You only get to see the worst of him these days and it’s starting to kill you. 

Every moment without him feels like a phone call away from a funeral, and every moment with him feels like living in an empty haunted house, suffocated by the echoes of past occupants. You’re always walking on eggshells, afraid to remind him you’re there lest he remembers, and decides to leave you physically just like he has mentally. 

It’s like crawling through hell, but you know that this is papercuts and splinters compared to the pain that he’s been dealing with ever since his best friend claimed his birthright.

You understand why he’s closing in on himself and you respect it, you give him that space that he seems to need to breathe, to heal. It’s just that it _really_ fucking hurts, because you’re hurting too, and all you need from him is his grounding, sunshiney, familiar presence to help _you_ heal, but it’s like the light in him went dark along with the rest of Eos. 

Now, Prom’s just a shadow of who he used to be, always on the run. 

And you’re finally starting to think that you’ll ever be able to catch up to him.

***

Today’s hunt fucking sucked. 

Prompto’s been getting more reckless than usual lately and today he was completely thoughtless in his efforts to push himself further than he could handle. He was with Cor and another hunter that had come looking for Cor for some other mission. Maybe he got cocky, maybe he got antsy, but somehow someway, Prompto ended up in the center of a daemon horde with nothing but his Quicksilver and Calamity pistols.

It was like it was forbode because the Marshal had even warned him early on in the day that he was pushing too much lately, not being careful enough, running into places blind. Prompto didn’t listen, of course, because he was what a professional might call passively suicidal. He ignored his mentor’s warnings and less than an hour later he was getting thwacked through the air with the flat side of an Iron Giant’s blade pulverizing half the bones on his left side. 

He’d landed messily, twisted something, bruised something else, lost consciousness. Next thing he knew he was waking up in the back of one of Lestallum’s hunters’ base trucks, the guy driving— _Stellus? Silvanus? Something Lucian starting with S, he doesn’t remember_ —catching an earful from Cor, telling him that ‘the kid’ owed it to everyone to take a break, get his head together for a while before he came back out to the field. 

Prompto doesn’t think that he was supposed to hear it but he did and damn if he didn’t chew on it and choke.

He knew that Cor was right but he fucking hated it. He hated that he got his ass kicked on the field, got knocked out in front of the Marshal of all people. He hated that he was too weak to handle his overzealous and overactive enthusiasm. _Make those actions match that attitude,_ Gladio had always told him when he would say something cocky during training. 

If only the Shield could see him now. 

_Pathetic._

Prom feels the familiar bumpy stonework of Lestallum’s streets rock the truck, rattle his brain around. With a groan, he pushes himself to a half-sitting position, pretending to have just woken up.

“Huh,” he hears Cor scoff, “Glad you’re not dead, Sleeping Beauty.”

Prompto swallows down his shame and aims a halfhearted sneer at the Marshal.

“Don’t sound so thrilled about it, Leonis,” he says.

The Marshal doesn’t laugh. Prompto doesn’t like that. He turns his head a few more degrees, grave blue eyes meeting reluctant violet ones over his shoulder. He hesitates for a moment and Prompto _really_ doesn’t like that. Whenever Cor hesitates, it ends badly—at least for Prompto.

“I called her,” Cor says carefully. The boy in the backseat is already breathing in a deep sigh. “I had to, Argentum, you were out cold and she needed to know what potions and preparations to have for you when you got back. You were a fuckin’ mess.”

Prompto grunts as he sits all the way up, “You shouldn’t have done that, Marshal.” 

Cor falters for a moment at the use of his title, something Prom only does anymore when he’s hurt or pissed. Seems like a little bit of both today.

“Astrals, kid, you’re acting like I didn’t do you a favor.”

“Because you didn’t,” the blond grumbles. 

He strains his uninjured arm to the floorboard beneath him to search blindly for his duffel bag, his neck and ears getting hot with some kind of gross-feeling emotion that always seems to surface when he finds himself in this position. 

When he finds himself confronted with you.

Hand reaching to yank at the door handle, Prom’s stopped short when the sound of the locks clicking reaches his ears. 

“Sextus, give us a minute, will you?” Cor asks—otherwise known as ‘gently commands’—tightly.

_Sextus, that was it!_ The perplexed and startled hunter in the driver’s seat nods shortly, double yanking his own door handle to dip out before he could get caught in the crossfire of today’s blowout. Minding his busted nose, Prompto tries not to snort at how fast the guy hightails it out of the parking lot.

A tense silence fills the cab of the truck when Cor turns around fully, his lips drawn tight in a grim line. The wrinkles around his eyes and forehead have been looking more pronounced lately, what with the end of the world and all, but sixdamn do they look like valleys right now. A pang of guilt hits the young gunslinger square in his chest as he realizes that he’s likely the reason for those frown lines coming on so soon and so suddenly.

A beat passes before Cor finally speaks.

“She loves you like crazy, you know that?”

Prom feels the air leaves his lungs faster and more painfully than when that Iron Giant had knocked all of his brain cells loose.

“Cor,” his voice is a low warning. It goes unheeded.

“She stays worried sick about you and you barely have the decency to text her to let her know that you’re alive. Do you not get how messed up that is?” 

Prompto’s opening his mouth to respond but Cor shakes his head once, his frown harsh. Oh great, he’s _mad_ mad. Here comes a monologue.

“She called me day before yesterday to check-in, begging me not to tell you because she didn’t want you to feel bad about making her worry, but damn you don’t even care, do you? You don’t even realize what you’re putting her through? You nearly kill yourself every time you leave base but you don’t even care how it would affect her.” The Marshal sighs, disappointed in his mentee. “You have her on the verge of heartbreak every day and Ramuh knows she doesn’t need more of it.”

Prompto ducks his head, not quite dumb enough to let himself start crying in front of Cor Leonis, but definitely ashamed enough to shudder under his admonishing. He once again starts to speak but is cut off instantly when Cor clicks his tongue at him, causing the younger man to flinch.

“She’s scared you’re gonna die and she’ll never have gotten the chance to see you smile again.”

The words crack him like a pistol whip, and his head snaps up, watery gaze finding Cor’s face.

“Sh-she said that?” Prom’s voice is thick and shaky.

Cor shakes his head, “She doesn’t have to. Every time we leave, she watches from your apartment window and looks like she’s ready to end it all. I bet she’s waiting for me to bring home nothing but your ID’s.” He stares at the blond, brows furrowed seriously, like a concerned father. “Do you care about her, at all?”

The boy in question yelps, “Of course I do, what the _hell_ kind of question is that?!”

“Then why don’t you act like it?!” Cor all but shouts it at Prompto. He doesn’t mean to snap like this but he can’t help it. He’s always looked at the two of you as his extended family, ever since you two entered the Prince’s life. It kills him to see the fearful look on the young man’s freckled face, but it kills him more to see the look on yours these days. 

Cor’s lips curl up in disgust, “You break her heart every time you walk out that door because she knows that each time you’re a day closer to dying on her and leaving her alone.”

It smarts to hear it, but Prompto knows it’s true. He doesn’t miss the way that you look at him when you think he’s not paying attention or the way that you sniffle when you patch him up silently. He knows you think you’re hiding it well when you weep in the shower at night or take too long on the balcony before bed, but he knows he’s the cause of those tears. 

“I don’t mean to hurt her,” he whispers.

“Then stop fuckin’ doing it.” Cor sighs again like it’s the proper punctuation at this point.

Prom sniffs hard, “After Noctis, I just—”

“You’re not the only one who lost him, Argentum.”

The use of his name gives the young man pause. _Oh, how the turn tables._ He chokes on his next words as he continues to try to squeeze them out of his throat.

“—I-I can’t stop hunting. I can’t stop trying to f-fix this—” Prompto waves his good arm around, gesturing vaguely, “—this _bullshit._ I’m trying to help fix it, for everyone, but mostly for _her._ I want her to be able to live again; I want her to have hope again, to think there’s more to the future than just _‘making it to next week’!_ I want her to be able to-to just—I need to _fix_ this! For her, Cor!” 

Prom’s crying now, but he doesn’t acknowledge it. He keeps going, snotty and strangled. 

“Every time I come home and it’s still dark, it’s another day that I let her down and that I didn’t do everything that I could to fix this fuckery! Noctis was eaten by that giant fucking—that fucking _oversized destiny rock_ to fix all of this shit and we _let him_ because we thought it would work but would ya look at that,” he huffs a humorless laugh, edging on hysterical, “the world is still broken! We’re _still_ waking up to darkness and we’re _still_ going to sleep mourning, and Noctis is _still_ gone and everything means _nothing_ now. Even to _Y/N,_ to the most hopeful, heartful girl I have _ever_ met, she has lost all fucking faith in the future.” 

He’s breathing heavily now, shaking because he’s finally said all of the shit that’s been summoning storm clouds in his head for the last year.

Meanwhile, Cor’s jaw is on the floor. He’s never heard Prompto sound this… this _desperate. Hopeless. Broken._ The tears rolling down the boy’s face and the cracking of his voice breaks the Marshal’s heart little by little.

“Kid…” he trails off, watching quietly as the blond snatches at the strap of his bag again, wincing at the movement.

Prompto scoffs, “If I have to choke down death every day to at least _try_ and make this shit world better, then I fucking will, Cor.” He glares at the older man, jaw set. “For her? I’ll do it all.”

Cor just nods mutely, too astounded to say anything in response.

“Now, unlock the damn door. Please.”

***

As you’re stepping out of the clouded confines of the bathroom, slipping on an old Insomnia High sweatshirt, you hear the sound of keys in the front door. Freezing, breath caught in your throat, you try to remember what time it is. Is it already past dinnertime? Cor said they wouldn’t be home for a while, you thought you would have time to run out to the market and fuck off so Prompto could come home to an empty apartment and have some space to himself to unwind alone.

You’re mentally calculating the quickest excuse and route to get you out of his hair immediately when he finally opens the door and steps in, finding you stood in the middle of the room like a chocobo caught in the headlights. He stands there frozen as well, staring back at you, but you hardly take notice of his expression. You’re too caught up cataloging his injuries through the uneven lighting in the entryway: the half-assed sling—aka one of his old muscle shirts ripped and retied—that his left arm is in, the bruises along what looks like that entire side of his body, what seems to be a black eye, the clunky bandages across his nose.

Letting out a gasp and frowning, you whisper his name, barely more than a breath, and at the way he tenses you know to back off quickly and quietly. Ducking your head and averting your eyes, you take a half-step backward, playing with the sleeves of your shirt. It looks like it’s just going to be one of those days.

“I was j-just, uh,” you clear your throat, “I was gonna go to the market and pick up stuff for dinner.” You risk a glance and find his intense gaze still on you and dart your eyes to the side. “Want anything?”

It feels awful, you decide. Talking to him like this, acting like strangers who just happen to share a space? It suffocates you and makes your fingers feel like they’re being stabbed with hundreds of needles and your throat feels tight and your eyes burn and holy shit your vision is swimming—

“Is that my sweatshirt?”

Your anxiety attack is swept away by the waves of Prompto’s voice rolling over you. Seriously, you can’t remember the last time you heard it. At least a week, right? You forgot how honey-coated his words always sounded. 

Gasping, you realize you haven’t responded.

“Y-yeah, sorry I just—I grabbed the first one I saw, m-my bad,” you stutter out, turning to the dresser to grab something new. Your hands are shaking like fucking autumn leaves and you hate it. “I’ll change it, sorr—”

“Y/N,” Prompto stops your rambling with his mild voice, which sounds a lot closer than it did a few moments ago.

You turn stiffly to find he’s taken a few steps, now only a couple meters from you. Now that he’s stepped into the low light of the main room, you can fully see his face finally, and _oh gods,_ what happened? His lashes are wet, his eyes red-rimmed and puffy (unrelated to the black eye, it would seem), he has tear tracks on his face and his lips look red and swollen like they always do after he cries. 

Your heart breaks.

He says your name again, quieter, weaker.

Your heart breaks again.

You want to hold him, but you know better. 

You want to ask what’s wrong, but of course, you know better. 

You’ve spent the better part of the last year navigating his moods like they were the damned Pitioss Ruins. 

You fucking _know better._

So it comes as a total surprise to you when you’re suddenly in front of him, staring up into those misty purplish eyes of his. Your hands are trembling again as they hover in the space between you two, unsure if you have permission to touch him.

“What’s happened?” You whisper.

He stares at you for moments that stretch on like years, searching your face for something. You feel too exposed as if you’ve been rubbed raw. It’s been so long since he’s been this close to you, looked at you this much, taken you in with that curious gaze. You know your hair is still wet, tripping onto your forehead and shoulders, and your skin’s not the best right now, stress and insomnia catching up to you. You probably have eyebags the size of a Nif drop ship at this point, and you’d bet money your own eyes are swollen from crying. You want to hide from him, avoid that piercing fucking sniper-stare of his, but you can’t. Locked in place, you just stare back and wait.

Finally, he speaks, “I’m r-really—” he’s interrupted with a blubbering breath and you feel your stomach drop, “—I’m so sorry. Y/N, I am so, _so_ sorry.”

Caught completely off guard, your face morphs into a troubled expression. Sorry? Did something happen? Did someone get hurt? Is someone dead?

“What? Sorry for what? You’re okay, right?” You’re shaking your head, stepping back to glance him over again, then looking back up at his face. 

“Y-yeah, I’m fine,” he says, which just increases your confusion.

“What happened, Prom? Is Cor okay?”

He shakes his head, “Y/N, Cor’s fine.”

Now you’re fucking lost and terrified. “You’re scaring me, Prom, what’s going on? Why are you apologizing?”

You watch him gulp, look to the side, lick his lips nervously. His free hand fiddles with the hem of his vest as he takes a deep, deliberate breath. Then he does something that you don’t think he’s done since that last terrifying night at Zegnautus Keep. 

He takes your hand in his and rubs his thumb over your knuckles, just like he would do in high school under your desks, or in the gap between the front seats of the Regalia. A full-body shiver wracks your frame and you feel tears prick at your eyes immediately, shock leaving you swaying. 

With wet lashes, you look down at the hand in yours, the star tattoo on the back of his wrist looking so different than the last time you saw it; the barbed wire one looks more faded too. Even the freckles on his forearm and knuckles look like they’ve faded and moved around—something that might actually be accurate considering they haven’t seen the sun in forever.

His fingertips feel more calloused than they used to be even though this isn’t his normal shooting hand. You remember he had been practicing dual-wielding his pistols before everything went down. Idly, you wonder if he’s gotten as good with his left hand as his right, turned fully ambidextrous. You haven’t fought by his side in so long, you wouldn’t know.

“Y/N, look at me,” he murmurs. 

The daze you’re in is shattered by his voice despite how gentle it is. You look up at him expectantly. You’re still confused and even more afraid now with how deathly serious he looks.

“Wh-what happened?”

You’ve seriously run through every worst-case scenario at least a million times before, especially these last few months, and you find yourself at a complete loss. In every single one of those scenarios, Prompto didn’t come home. Your worst-case scenario never involved him standing in the same room as you, let alone holding your hand. So it’s safe to say that right now, you’re utterly confounded. 

“Please say something,” you plead. 

Your words shake and you feel dangerously close to bursting into tears.

Something ugly in the back of your head tells you he’s about to break your heart. 

Again.

***

Prompto feels like he can’t breathe, or speak. He doesn’t even know how to start saying he’s sorry, or how to express _how_ sorry he is. He knew all this time that he was closing himself off and pushing you away as a result, but he didn’t think that it was affecting you as bad as Cor made it seem.

The older man’s words run through his head again:

_“She’s scared you’re gonna die and she’ll never have gotten the chance to see you smile again.”_

He was convinced that he was saving you the trouble by hiding his messiness from you, avoiding making you feel like you had to help him. He didn’t want you to feel burdened by his mourning, he knew it was ugly and he knew that he was aggressive at times, but he never…

_Shiva help him,_ he didn’t mean to hurt you, and he needed to let you know that somehow. If only he fucking knew how to stitch words together in a way that made sense, literally ever. He gets lost in his head, drafting a proper speech in his head when he feels your hand—it’s so small in his, fuck it’s like you’ve shrunk since he last held you—squeeze his, urging him on.

“Please, say something,” you say when he’s paused for too long. 

He can hear how choked up you are, and he knows that the way you’re trembling has nothing to do with the temperature in here. He nods and clears his throat, knowing that his procrastinating will only make your anxiety worse.

“I’m… Y/N, I was really stupid, I’m sorry.” 

Well, that wasn’t what he wanted to say. Fuck.

You release a quivering sigh, “Y-yeah, I guessed that. But you’re okay, you’re home, so I’m—it’s okay.” You smile at him but it doesn’t reach your eyes. 

“You don’t owe me explanations Prom—”

“But I do!” He interjects suddenly and judging from the look on your face he’s startled you, which, again, was not his intention. If he could just do maybe _one_ thing right today, he would absolutely _love_ that. 

He closes his eyes, breathes deep, restarts.

“Y/N, I’ve been so… this last year has been hard,” he starts slowly, thinking before he speaks now.

You nod and squeeze his hand again, “I know Prom. You’re allowed to take your time.”

Bewildered, he opens his eyes to stare at you. You’re… oh Astrals. You think he’s talking about himself. Of course, you think he’s talking about himself, he’s been nothing but selfish for the past twelve months, he’s probably sucked all of your sense of self-indulgence from you. He wonders if you’ve been able to put yourself first _once_ in the last year.

“N-no, baby, no, I’m talking about you,” he clarifies.

You frown up at him, “What do you mean? I’m fine?”

Prompto’s heart wrenches so hard he feels his fractured ribs start throbbing again. He mumbles your name with his voice weighed down by tenderness and apology.

“Y/N, you aren’t fine,” he says. He can feel you working up an objection so he shakes his head to stop you. He carries on gently, “I know you think I don’t hear, but you… you still cry. In the shower, or when you think I’m asleep.” He watches your face get red in embarrassment, but it doesn’t stop him. He needs to make sure you know that he notices and that he cares.

“I know that Gladio hasn’t called back once since he left, and I know that Iggy only calls every couple of weeks now. I know that you miss them. I know that you miss Noct. I know that you miss home.” He pauses, lip wobbling. “I know that you miss _me._ I know that you worry about me and that I’m a lot to handle and that I’m thoughtless and self-centered and I know that it’s easier to avoid me, and I’m so, so sorry for making you carry my baggage all this time when you should have been unpacking your own.” 

A deep breath. 

“Y/N, baby, I’m _so_ sorry.”

He doesn’t know when he started crying again, but he did and it’s making his nose burn and his black eye start to throb again, but he can’t stop himself until he’s said everything he needs to say and finally, _finally_ his chest feels lighter.

Breathless and shaking, Prompto looks up from the floor and finds your eyes which are just as tear-filled as his own. _Oh, gods, I did it again,_ he thinks in panic.

“Shit, d-dont cry, I’m sorry, please don’t—”

You cut him off by falling forward into his chest, nudging his injured arm, and pressing against his ribs painfully, but he doesn’t care. Prompto doesn’t care, he doesn’t give a _fuck,_ because for the first time since the darkness fell, you’re in his arms again and you are warm and sweet and you smell like sunshine and home and it’s like every iota of the disaster that has befallen you two has been rewound and undone.

You’re shaking in his grip, body wracked with sobs, but he hears a laugh fall out through the tears and he knows you’re okay. You’re okay and you’re still here with him and you’re laughing and hugging him and _you’re. okay._

“I thought you hated me,” you choke out, muffled against his shirt.

His heart just about falls out of his ass. He uses his good hand to grab your shoulder, push you away from him. Wide eyes meet wider eyes as he squawks out a “what?!”

“I-I said I thought you—”

“No, no, no, I _heard_ you, I just don’t understand what on Eos could ever, _ever,_ convince you that I wasn’t disgustingly in love with you?!” He knows he’s hard to understand through his tears and his probably-broken-nose, but he hopes his shock carries because _what in the Six._

You sniffle, “You were always leaving on h-hunts, and you never wanted to talk or cuddle and you haven’t—this is the first time we’ve touched in, like, a year, Prompto. I thought you—” you hiccup, “—I thought you wanted nothing to do with me. I w-was just…” Your eyes glisten up at him when you stop mid-sentence, fear leaking into your words. “I was waiting for you to finally tell me to leave.”

Prompto feels cold all over and then hot all over and then cold again. The tears stop and so does all of the pain in his body, suddenly evaporating away. He steps back from you, his face hard as he looks down at you.

“You _what?_ ” he whispers. He watches you wince at his tone.

“I thought you… I…” you trail off weakly.

“Y/N… You thought I was gonna tell you to leave—you thought I hated you—but you stayed?” You nod. Prom chokes on his breath. “H-how long were you—it wasn’t _all_ this time, was it?”

You play your fingers, avoiding eye contact. “After, um, after that—that first really long hunt where you got lost in the caves. When… when you stopped checking in.” 

The pain in your voice is evident and it just makes that guilty rock in Prompto’s gut get heavier. His shoulders even sink down with the weight of it as it grips him and pulls.

“That was… fuck, how long—”

“Almost ten months,” you fill in effortlessly.

Prompto wants to die.

“Baby,” he whispers, voice breaking. “All this time? You were just…?”

You nod and bite your lip. 

“I was sure you didn’t want me around but… I couldn’t leave on my own, in case y-you needed me.” You reluctantly reach for his hand again and when you take it, you grip it with certainty. “We’re all that’s left from Insomnia, at this point. I didn’t want you to lose yourself any more than you already had.”

This time when you embrace, Prompto grabs you with crushing desperation that hurts even more than the first time. He barely feels it, even when his ribs creak and his collarbone throbs. He tucks your head under his chin and breathes deep, memorizes your scent, the warmth of your skin, the weight of your arms around his waist, the sound of your rough breathing. He commits it all to memory as precisely as he can so that the next time he’s out in the field, thinking of doing something stupid, he can summon this moment and remind himself what’s waiting for him at home.

“I love you and I’m sorry and I never want to lose you and you will never lose me and I will always be here for you and I will never tell you to leave. I promise. I promise, _I promise,_ Y/N,” Prompto mumbles all of this into the crown of your head, but he knows you hear it all.

You nod against the junction of his neck. 

“I love you so much, Prom,” you whisper.

“I love you more, Y/N.”

The two of you stand there for a while, feeling each other and breathing each other in like you’re getting your first glimpse of sunlight again for the first time since the Fall. And it’s almost like you are.

This warmth that left that night at Zegnautus.

This safety that’s been gone ever since the Wall crumbled.

This comfort that’s been lost every time someone left.

It was all here again.

You were both home again.

**Author's Note:**

> i have an idea for a second chapter of this but lord knows if I'll ever get around to it


End file.
